Group Trips: Booking the Circuit for 7 to 14
Seven paddlers changes everything — group reservations, a fixed itinerary, designated group sites, and far fewer departures to compete for.
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Seven paddlers is the line. Below it you book like anyone else and set your own pace; at seven and above you are a group, and the circuit works differently — fixed itinerary, designated campsites, and a much smaller number of departures to compete for.
Seven is the number that changes things
A standard BC Parks reservation covers a party of up to six. Those parties choose their own campsites as they go and can take anywhere from a night to a fortnight over the route.
From seven people upward you must hold a group reservation instead. That is not a formality — it changes where you sleep, how far you travel each day, and how far ahead you need to book. Fourteen people is the hard ceiling; parties larger than that are not permitted on the circuit at all.
You cannot assemble a group trip out of several small reservations. Booking three separate parties of five and meeting up on the water is not permitted, and the campsite rules make it unworkable anyway.
You paddle to a schedule
Independent parties wander. Groups do not. BC Parks sets group trips on a fixed itinerary — a set number of nights for the full circuit, and a shorter set itinerary for the West Side — and you receive that schedule when you check in at the Registration Centre.
In practice it means a known distance to cover each day, because you have to reach the next group site by nightfall. It is not a punishing pace, but it does remove the option of stopping early because the weather turned or someone is tired. Build your day around it.
Where groups camp
Groups may only use the designated group sites, which exist so that a party of fourteen does not swallow a campsite built for two tents. Independent parties may not camp in them. They are spread around the circuit roughly a day apart:
| Lake | Group site |
|---|---|
| Kibbee | #2 |
| Indianpoint | #7, about two-thirds along the lake |
| Isaac | #14, at Wolverine Bay where the arms meet |
| Isaac | #21, halfway down the long arm on the west side |
| Isaac | #29, at the end of the lake next to the Chute |
| Lanezi | #33, at Turner Creek |
| Unna | #41 and #42, on Rum Lake |
| Spectacle | #46, across from Pat’s Point |
| Swan | #47, at Pat’s Point |
| Swan | #50, just before the Bowron River |
Site numbers as recorded in our own trip guide. BC Parks maintains the definitive list and occasionally reclassifies a site — #46 was an ordinary campsite until fairly recently.
Group departures are scarce
The number of parties starting the circuit on any given day is capped, and only a small fraction of those slots are group departures — a single full-circuit group and a single West Side group per day. Demand for them has grown sharply.
The practical consequence: group reservations open earlier and close earlier than ordinary ones, and the window is short. If you are organising a trip for a scout troop, a school, a club or an extended family, treat the booking date as the fixed point of your planning and build everything else around it. BC Parks publishes the current dates and rules.
Renting for a group
Fourteen people is up to five canoes, and that is the part we can make easy. Our fleet lives at the Registration Centre, so nobody in your party needs a roof rack, a trailer or a plan for getting boats to the trailhead — everyone parks, checks in together and walks to the water.
Talk to us before you book the boats. Group parties arrive on one schedule and return on one schedule, and it helps us to know the numbers early. Call +1-778-414-8014 or send us a message, and see canoe rentals for what each rental includes.
Get your BC Parks group reservation confirmed first, then call us with the dates. The canoes are the easy part — the launch date is the scarce one.
Canoes waiting at the start and the finish.
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